6 September 2017

Themes

  • Cultural unity

  • Diversity of political organizations

  • Citizenship

A model Greek Polis (city-state)

Hellenic Culture

  • Common structures and architectural language
    • Pottery, sculpture, costume
  • Sporting Events
    • Olympic Games (first in 776 BC)
  • Warfare
  • Mythology
  • Language (barbaros)

Homer

'Homer Caetani', Roman copy (C2 AD?) of Hellenistic statue

Greek Writing

  • Linear B (extinct c.1100 BC) –> Cypriot Syllabary (extince c.300 BC)
    • Syllabic (consonant & vowel)
  • Phoenecian
    • Abjad (consonants only, no vowels)
    • Derived from Egyptian heiroglyphs
    • Evolved into Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic, and other scripts

Neck of the "Nessos Amphora," Athens, 625-600 BC, National Archaeological Museum

The "Cup of Nestor" From Pithekoussai, c. 750-700 BC. Cf Iliad, 11.632-637.

Detail of hoplite battle on the the Chingi Vase, c.650-40 BC

Spartan System

  • Laconia ("Laconic")
  • "Militaristic" and "totalitarian" state
  • Citizenry
    • State training for both boys and girls
    • Lifelong military service (7-60)
    • Property rights for women
    • No currency
  • Helots, enslaved descendents of Messenians
    • Both necessary and existential threat

Athenian Democracy

  • Attica
  • Solon reformed oligarchy 594 BC
  • Peisistratus becomes Tyrant 560 BC
  • Reforms of Cleisthenes 509 BC
    • New tribes (demes)
    • Assembly (all citizens)
    • "Election" by lots to Council of 500, Generals elected annually by popular vote
    • Ostracism
  • Citizens, Metics, Slaves
    • Citizens had 2 years military service
    • Women citizens had very restricted lives

Persian Empire

  • Political unity, cultural heterogenity
    • Cyrus the Great (d. 530 BC)
  • Conquered Lydia 547 BC
  • Regular contact with Greek world
    • Greek cities supported revolts in Asia Minor, Egypt; Persia supported weak Greek poleis
    • Use of Greek mercenaries both for and against the empire

Fifth Century

  • Ionian revolt 499, supported by Athens
    • 490 (Marathon); 480 (Thermopylae, Salamis); 479 (Plataea)
    • Delian League formed 478, became Athenian Empire under Pericles' leadership (d. 429 BC)
  • Peloponnesian War 431-404 BC
    • Ended in victory of Spartan alliance

Fourth Century

  • Thebes replaced Sparta as preeminent power
    • Epaminondas (d. 362)
    • Military reforms
    • Messenia liberated 380 BC
  • Macedonian Hegemony
    • Philip (d. 336) was hostage in Thebes in his youth, learned reforms and implemented more
    • "Hemibarbaros"
    • United Greece

Fourth-century Philosophy

  • philein (to love) sophia (wisdom)
  • Plato (d. 347)
    • Platonic dialogues
    • Academy (to 529 AD)
  • Aristotle (d. 322 BC)
    • Comprehensive system of philosophy: physics, biology, zoology, metaphysics, logic, ethics, aesthetics, poetry, theater, music, rhetoric, linguistics, politics and government
    • Lyceum (to 86 BC)

Further Reading: Ancient Greece

  • Primary
    • Herodotus, Histories. [The original work of history]
    • Xenophon, Anabasis. [The story of Greek mercenaries returning home, by one of Socrates' students]
  • Secondary
    • R. Kebric, Greek People, 4th Edition (2004).
    • R. Morkot, The Penguin Historical Atlas of Ancient Greece, (1996).
    • S.B. Pomeroy et al. A Brief History of Ancient Greece: Politics, Society and Culture, 3rd Edition (2017).

Alphabets and Calendars: How we know things happened and when

Themes

  • Simplification
  • Standardization
  • Accessibility

Time as a maths problem

  • Year: 365.253 Days
  • Lunar ("synodic") month: 29.5 days
    • ~11 days short of a solar year

Scientific/Archaeological dating

  • Correlation and cross-dating ("Synchronism")
    • Comparison of finds in one context of discovery having a continuous record, particularly written (e.g. Egypt of Mesopotamia), or with a precise date, with those in another context of discovery (e.g. Greece)
    • "Heirloom" problem
  • Scientific dating
    • Radiometric dating: most famously carbon-14 (or "radiocarbon"); half-life 5730 +/- 40 years
    • Incremental dating: e.g. tree-rings (dendrochronology), ice cores, lake-bed sediment
    • Problems: calibration; regional gaps in the record
  • Usually, dating methods are used in combination

Ancient calendars

  • Hellenistic kingdoms adapted Macedonian/Classical Greek calendar to local cycles
    • Egypt: 12 months of 30 days, 5 additional days at the end of the year
    • Syria: Babylonian Metonic cycle: 19 solar years ~ 235 lunar months (12 months/year + 7 "intercalary" months)
  • Indiction: 15 year tax cycle
    • Used throughout Europe & Mediterranean in 1st Millennium AD
  • We use the Gregorian calendar (1582 AD), a reformed Julian calendar (45 BC), a reformed Old Roman calendar
    • Same month names
    • Julian calendar removed the "intercalary" month

Epochs

  • anno domini AD/BC (CE/BCE)
  • ab urbe condita (AUC), Rome
    • Rome: 753 BC
  • anno mundi AM, Jews and Christians
    • Hebrew Latin epoch: c.3760 BC
    • Orthodox epoch: c.5500 BC
  • anno graecorum, Syria & Middle East
    • 312 BC (Seleucus' conquest of Babylon)
    • Used through c14 AD
  • fasti: Eponymous archons (Greek city-states); Consular year (Rome)
    • Athens: C6 BC - C3 AD

Early Information Technology

  • Preservation
    • Oral memory: ~200 years
    • Inscriptions: durable; large amount of effort; exposed
    • Clay: luck of becoming pottery
    • Metals: rust; intrinsic value –> recycling
    • Natural materials: portable; cheaper; decay (wax tablets, papyrus, parchment) –> transmission (copying)

Cuneiform tablet with seal impression, Walters Art Museum in Baltimore. c.2100-2050 BC

Homer, Iliad II 757-775, Oxford Bodleian Library, Papyrus Hawara 24-28 (C2 AD)

Singing from a sideways scroll, Howard Psalter & Hours, English, c.1310-20.

Further Reading

  • Calendars and Dating Systems
    • E.J. Bickerman, Chronology of the Ancient World, (1980).
    • A.E. Samuel, Greek and Roman Chroonology. Calendars and Years in Classical Antiquity, (1972).
  • Writing and record-keeping
    • P. Daniels and W. Bright, The World's Writing Systems, (1996).
    • F. Coulmas, The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Writing Systems, (1996).
    • L.D. Reynolds and N.G. Wilson, Scribes and Scholars: A Guide to the Transmission of Greek and Latin Literature, 3rd Edition (1991).